Ghanaian President John Mahama announced this week that his administration had struck a deal with the Trump administration to receive deportees from the United States, specifiying that a “first batch” of 14 migrants had already arrived in Ghana.
Ghana is the latest country to strike a deal with the US to receive deportees from third countries who refuse to take their nationals back, after similar deals were struck with Rwanda or Uganda – eSwatini and South Sudan also received US deportees under different conditions, as they were convicts intended to be imprisoned on their soil, instead of purging their sentence in the US.
John Mahama specified that he aimed to receive West African deportees, as Ghana has a visa-free policy that would ease their transfer to their home countries. A majority of the 14 migrants who landed in Ghana under this deal are Nigerians, a community that was targeted by anti-immigration protests in Ghana earlier this year that lead to diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Contrary to Ghana, Nigeria refused to sign a deal to take in US deportees, as Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar stressed that Nigeria “had enough problems as it is”.
Tuggar had accused the US of “putting considerable pressure” on African countries to push them to sign deportation deals. Ghana was slapped with a blanket 15% tariff on exports to the US, and was one of four African nations – along with Nigeria, Ethiopia and Cameroon – to be targeted with visa restrictions on entries in the US: invoking “reciprocity”, the Trump administration announced in July that nearly all non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to citizens of the four countries will now be single-entry and valid for only three months.
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Ghanaian President John Mahama announced this week that his administration had struck a deal with the Trump administration to receive deportees from the United States, specifiying that a “first batch” of 14 migrants had already arrived in Ghana.
Ghana is the latest country to strike a deal with the US to receive deportees from third countries who refuse to take their nationals back, after similar deals were struck with Rwanda or Uganda – eSwatini and South Sudan also received US deportees under different conditions, as they were convicts intended to be imprisoned on their soil, instead of purging their sentence in the US.
John Mahama specified that he aimed to receive West African deportees, as Ghana has a visa-free policy that would ease their transfer to their home countries. A majority of the 14 migrants who landed in Ghana under this deal are Nigerians, a community that was targeted by anti-immigration protests in Ghana earlier this year that lead to diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Contrary to Ghana, Nigeria refused to sign a deal to take in US deportees, as Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar stressed that Nigeria “had enough problems as it is”.
Tuggar had accused the US of “putting considerable pressure” on African countries to push them to sign deportation deals. Ghana was slapped with a blanket 15% tariff on exports to the US, and was one of four African nations – along with Nigeria, Ethiopia and Cameroon – to be targeted with visa restrictions on entries in the US: invoking “reciprocity”, the Trump administration announced in July that nearly all non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to citizens of the four countries will now be single-entry and valid for only three months.